Adozen years ago, the attention of the world was fixed on Col. Margarethe “Grethe” Cammermeyer.
Today, the spotlight is gone. From her home on Whidbey Island, within “spitting distance from Langley,” Cammermeyer has her attention fixed firmly on the world – but not only on the world.
There’s local politics. Cammermeyer heads the Democratic Party in Island County. And mostly, there’s love. In March, Cammermeyer married her partner, artist Diane Divelbess.
“I refuse to accept the fact that my relationship with my partner of 16 years is any less valued than those of my children, their relationships,” Cammermeyer said last week.
A decorated Vietnam War veteran, the 62-year-old retired Army officer is outspoken on gay rights, the war in Iraq and other issues. But first, a history lesson.
In 1992, Cammermeyer was chief nurse of the Washington National Guard. She was discharged from the military after revealing she was a lesbian during an interview for a top-level security clearance.
Defense Department policy then barred homosexuals from the armed forces. A two-year legal fight ensued, and as a result the policy was declared unconstitutional. Cammermeyer was reinstated and retired with full military benefits in 1997.
She wrote a book, “Serving in Silence,” and was the subject of a TV movie starring Glenn Close. In 1998, she lost the 2nd District race for Congress to Republican Jack Metcalf.
Earlier this year, she again was in the national news when she and Divelbess were married by a judge in Portland, Ore. A legal review in Multnomah County had found it unconstitutional to keep same-sex couples from applying for marriage licenses.
“When we were pronounced married, it was an awesome feeling of legitimacy in the eyes of the law,” Cammermeyer said of their March 19 wedding. “Even though we had felt very connected and legal, something about that state recognition culminated this 16-year relationship.”
They celebrated in Portland with lattes and bagels. On Whidbey, their union was blessed in a ceremony at St. Augustine’s In-the-Woods Episcopal Church.
“All of our families were here, and friends from here and around the country,” she said. “It couldn’t have been more wonderful.”
On Nov. 2, Oregon voters joined those in 10 other states in rejecting same-sex marriage. Measure 36 will ban future gay marriages, but the status of couples already married is unclear.
Cammermeyer said she hopes society will someday accept that everyone has a right to marry. “As people become more comfortable speaking their own truth, our children and grandchildren will say, ‘What’s the big deal?’”
The issue of homosexuals in the military hasn’t gone away. Cammermeyer still works for change within the system.
The policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell” is the current rule.
“There is no opportunity for the military to change that law, it has to be changed through Congress,” Cammermeyer said. In more than 10 years, she said, “over 10,000 service members have been discharged because of don’t ask, don’t tell.”
The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (www.sldn.org) is working to lift the ban on being openly gay in the military, she said.
As a nurse in Vietnam who treated hundreds of wounded American soldiers, Cammermeyer was appalled at the recent presidential campaign. “You had the questioning of the integrity of John Kerry’s service in the military by jackasses who have never been there,” she said. “It made me furious.”
She also protested going to war in Iraq in 2003 “without due cause.”
“All of the reasons used – weapons of mass destruction, going after terrorists when there was no reason to indicate they were there – all the pieces didn’t fit together, before or afterward,” she said.
“That said,” she added, “what do we do now?”
Since rooting out the Islamic militants in Fallujah, she sees a need for more cleanup to prevent a spread of the insurgency. “Then, get out before it escalates,” she said. “We don’t have to say we won the war. All we have to say is we have turned Iraq over to the Iraqi people.”
Still, she fears, “we have stirred up a hornet’s nest around the world.”
In troubled times, she has focused on grass-roots change.
“What I have done is put my energy into local politics to try to build our foundation in Island County,” said Cammermeyer, who will run for re-election as Island County Democratic chairwoman in January.
She’s not in the movies or on front pages. But from her home overlooking Saratoga Passage, Cammermeyer is still here and still fighting.
I don’t care who you are, or what beliefs you hold, if you talk with her you’ll discover what I did: She commands respect.
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.
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